Long Road to Ruin
by Zombiebrainz
Summary: shit went down when archie took his team to mt. pyre and now he has emotional scarring. good thing maxie's always chill with him just showing up at his place, right? right. [ hardenshipping, maxie/archie, maxie x archie, one shot, the usual ]


Her blood was warm.

It was a stupid thought—of course her blood was warm as it spilled from her body, dripped down between his quaking fingertips as he clutched onto the Aqua admin who smiled up at him. "I-it's okay, Archie, 'm fine," Shelly mumbled, her hand settling on his forearm, trying to soothe him as her fingertips slowly stroked the ripped fabric of his coat. It was shredded, in fact—there were cuts on his arms, his shoulders, his back, and while most had only scraped past the skin, he would have more than happily traded his injuries for Shelly's.  
The typically fearsome, now softened, orange-haired woman delicately had her left arm covering her abdomen, Archie carefully, mindful of her pain, pulling it back to see the severity of her wounds.

Deep claw-marks sank deep into the muscle of her firm stomach, Archie unable to see any organs exposed but certain something was punctured. The gashes traced up her chest and her breathing sounded watery, as if she had liquid in her lungs.  
"You're going to be okay," Archie insisted, looking up. His knees were sore from bracing himself against one of the rocky walls of the small alcove carved out of Mt. Pyre. "Help is going to be here soon, you're gonna be fine…"  
When coming to take the Red Orb and reawaken Kyogre, Archie had not anticipated the hostile outlash of the pokemon when they had overtaken the burial site and began their way up.  
He didn't even know where the others were—where they had hidden, where they had taken flight, but he hoped his Crobat would be able to find somebody to come and help him get Shelly back to their base.

"N-no, Archie."  
From frantically looking beyond their hiding place, scouting around for any of the pokemon that had initially attacked them, Archie looked back to Shelly. She was still smiling, but everything about her seemed so weak and frail as her shaking, blood-smeared hand reached up. Fumbling, her thumb caressed away the tears Archie hadn't realized been streaming down his face.  
"I'm okay," she began, forcing her voice to be strong. Archie could feel his throat tighten as she wavered, squinting at him as though her vision was fading, the hand on his forearm firming its hold. "I'm ready. I'm ready to go."  
The sharp beat of wings signaled Crobat's return, Archie looking over to see Matt and several grunts running towards them.  
A Mightyena tailed behind, growling and snapping at any pokemon that may be considering a second ambush.

"They're here, Shelly—you're gonna make it, you just have to, you just have to," His voice choked up, looking back and seeing Shelly's smile gone, eyes fogged over as she stared somewhere past him.  
Matt stopped dead in his tracks, the small group that had come for Archie and Shelly watching as their leader broke down sobbing over Shelly's limp form.

-

It wasn't often that at nine p.m. Maxie heard a fist pounding on his front door. He knew it was a fist because any normal, courteous person would have knocked lightly, rather than throwing all of their weight against the door. Somewhat surprised it hadn't been broken down just from how powerful those knocks sounded, Maxie almost thought it was the police—but his house was well-hidden in the mountains of Hoenn, neighboring its single volcano and close enough to Lavaridge to not pass off as abnormal to any travelers who managed to trek out this far.  
Setting aside his novel, though not before meticulously placing his bookmark down so that it also marked the paragraph he left off at, Maxie figured that much.  
Travelers often came by and asked directions, rarely ever desiring refuge unless the weather was bad.  
It was warm this time of year and the skies were almost always clear, a lovely time to camp out under the stars.

The pounding came again and he sighed, getting up from the loveseat and heading to the front of the house, "I'm coming, I'm coming! Calm down before you break my door…"  
Unlocking and opening it, Maxie ran a hand through his hair in irritation, looking up to see who was at my doorstep.  
"What are you so frantic about—"  
On one hand, he was shocked to see Archie at his door, but on the other, this wasn't the first time he had seen Archie in his home.  
Normally it was through some broken window, a back door he forgot to unlock, or he even managed to pick the lock of his front door. For him to be so courteous to actually _knock _before he robbed him of something was astounding, but seconds later, he was scrunching up his nose.

"Good lord, Archie, you stink of alcohol—wait, I didn't say you could come in here!"  
Archie was ignoring him, as per usual, and shoving past, Maxie feeling tempted to throw something at his head and show him just how he felt about him marching into his house without permission.  
They were enemies! _Enemies!  
_Enemies do not just waltz into your house as if it was some common thing.

"You can't stay here, you need to go," Maxie started angrily, storming after Archie, who had already made himself a fixture on his couch. "No, no, _no, _this is not going to work, you need to get out—"  
He did not want to deal with a drunk Archie, and then in the morning a hung over Archie.  
If he stayed for any longer than any hour, he'd just be a permanent attachment to his couch and he'd be there for the night, probably even much of the morning.  
It had happened before, though that had been a time before they had become rivals in their opposing ideals of what the future should hold.  
But, it had been several weeks since, well, _the incident.  
_Maxie thought he had been done with all of this madness when they had returned the orbs to Mt. Pyre.

"It's all my fault," blubbered Archie into the cushions, barely budged at all as Maxie tried to pull at him.  
"When did you get so fat?" Maxie grumbled, though nothing had changed—Archie was still some meathead, and he was, well, _refined, _as he liked to call his body type.  
"It's all my fault!"  
Not humored by Archie's drunken blathering, Maxie looked down at him, his hands resting against his shoulder blades.  
"Yes, it is your fault. Now could you get out of my house? You're dirtying my good furniture and I just got the place cleaned."  
When Archie let out a heavy sob, Maxie paused.  
Oh.  
Well.  
This wasn't a part of their usual interactions.

"It's all my fault she's dead, if I hadn't just—if I hadn't just—"  
Archie derailed back into sobs, Maxie pulling back warily. He was assuming that this was all happening because of just how drunk Archie was, considering usually he didn't flop onto his couch and start raving about dead people.  
"If we hadn't just, _gone in there, _maybe it would've been all okay…"  
Maxie had zero idea as to what Archie was talking about. Maybe he had murdered some woman recently and was now here to confess his sins, which was probably unlikely. Archie acted like he was a hotshot, sure, but not some psychopathic killer.  
Carefully, he tried to at least get Archie to readjust his position—he swore if he ended up drooling on his couch or something, he'd beat him senseless—as he tugged at his shoulder, still finding him too heavy to just flip over.

Instead, milliseconds later, it was done for him.  
Twisting over, Archie grabbed onto the hand that had been poking and prodding at him, Maxie feeling regret flash momentarily through his brain before the floor said good bye to his feet.  
Like a child hefted onto Santa's lap, he went from half-crouched and trying to get Archie to move to being wrapped in his arms, a bit snug against his back.  
Expecting his neck to be snapped in some fashion, Maxie braced himself, but instead found Archie's face buried in his chest, the usually bravado-filled Aqua leader hiccupping and quivering, his face streaked with tears.  
"She died _right in my arms,_" he whimpered, speech somewhat slurred as he kept up his story-telling of this dead woman. "She just—she just—_there was blood everywhere._"

Archie held onto him tighter and Maxie winced, already knowing that this position was not going to be comfortable within a few more seconds.  
"I don't think you've noticed, but Archie, I'm not your mother—I'm , ah, not here to comfort you," Maxie carefully began, trying to readjust Archie's iron hold on him, his hands plucking at his arms.  
"Shelly had just been _smiling _like—like it was okay! Like she was gonna get better, but—but, she just—"  
A shudder ran through Archie as sobs overtook him once more, and for the first time since Archie had drunkenly stormed into his house, Maxie actually paused.  
Shelly was dead?  
He never really paid that much attention to the habits of Team Aqua, but, when they had gotten to Mt. Pyre, he did remember Archie getting a strange, saddened look. He had assumed it was because their plans had crumbled, both of them failing in their opposing missions, and had passed it off.  
He also hadn't seen her among their rankings during the last few days of Team Aqua's existence before both their teams were disbanded.

Hands falling away from trying to pry off Archie's arms, he frowned.  
Well, that explained… Everything, really.  
There was the temptation to point out how drastic it was to get himself painfully drunk and then stagger off to his former rival's house, but, Archie was stupid sometimes.  
"… Let go of me, Archie," Maxie sighed, Archie clutching onto him tighter in response. Pursing his lips, Maxie continued, "I'm not going to kick you out. But I might if you don't let go of me."  
Begrudgingly, Archie did end up letting go of Maxie, who pulled back, sighing as he looked down at his now tear-stained shirt.  
At least it wasn't covered in snot.

"Stay."  
Maxie got up, heading off to get a fresh shirt, able to feel Archie's eyes following him as he left the living room and disappeared down the hall. Surprisingly, he was not followed—for once, Archie was listening.

Changing quickly, he paused before heading back, turning around to go into the bathroom connecting to his bedroom.  
Grabbing the spare box of tissues he kept in the lower cabinets beneath his sink, he ripped open the top and chucked the piece into the small wastebasket.  
Heading back to the living room, he found Archie sitting properly now—well, almost. His legs were pulled up against his chest, his shoes absent, and his bandana also gone.  
Had the bandana even been there?  
He couldn't remember, but obviously, as he had feared, Archie fully intended on staying the night.  
Internally did Maxie sigh at the thought, toughing it out either way as he sat down next to Archie.

"Look at me," he muttered, Archie having been staring intently at the lamp mounted next to the couch. His gaze remained fixated on the light.  
"Archie, _look at me._"  
Rather than stay stubborn, he became obedient again, Archie sullenly looking to Maxie, tensed somewhat as he anticipated getting smacked for his behavior. He wasn't _that _drunk to not realize Maxie was hating all of this.  
Flinching as a soft hand touched to his jaw, no pain greeted him as Maxie pulled out one of the tissues from the box he brought, beginning to wipe away Archie's tears.  
"God, you're a mess," Maxie grumbled, listening to Archie sniffle. It was like he was dealing with a child—a very upset, drunk, unhappy child.

Getting another tissue, setting the other aside to be chucked later when he had the time, he focused on his work rather than looking at Archie's puffy, reddened eyes.  
"You need to find a healthier coping method beyond getting as drunk as possible and then dragging yourself here," Maxie lightly reprimanded, still not getting much of anything from Archie. Really, they hadn't truly 'spoken' since Archie had waltzed through his front door. Instead, he got a lot of sobbing, stubbornness, and wailing of Shelly's death.

Dabbing at a freshly spilled tear, Maxie struggled to retain his stern, displeased appearance. He was still upset about Archie just barging in uninvited—it would have been nice if he had somehow sent a notice prior. Then again, they had no means of communication. They hadn't talked since Mt. Pyre.  
"… Why did you come here, Archie?" Maxie asked to fill the silence, tired of listening to Archie hold back more tears. He reached out, grabbing the box of tissue and setting it close to Archie so he could do with it as he needed to.  
As he expected, Archie took a tissue and blew his nose—disgusting—while Maxie waited for some sort of answer, Archie not meeting his eyes.  
He spent a good, solid minute avoiding it until Maxie cleared his throat impatiently, his lips thinning.

"I just thought you'd understand," blubbered Archie, finally, looking close to crying again.  
Maxie figured it to be the alcohol making him so overly emotional, tearing up as he turned to Maxie.  
"You just—out of everyone—"  
He didn't seem to be finding the right words so with another emotional heave of his chest, he threw out his arms, Maxie scrunching his eyes shut as he was dragged back into yet another bear hug.  
Archie buried his face in the side of Maxie's neck, the tears Maxie had thought had thought back again as he resumed sobbing.  
This time, instead of trying to push him away, Maxie just endured it, letting Archie cry for as long as he desired.

Eventually, Archie's fierce hold began to loosen until he began to pull back, separating the two once more as he sat back against the arm of the couch, Maxie fishing out more tissues as Archie resumed staring down his lamp.  
"… Why haven't you kicked me out yet?" Archie sniffled, flinching again when Maxie reached out to clean his face off.  
Again.  
This better not become a theme.  
"One, I can't physically move you without giving myself a hernia. Secondly, I don't want to hear you sobbing on my doorstep all night because you're too drunk to even get yourself home."  
Archie looked over, pouting somewhat and was promptly met with a rather displeased look from Maxie.

"… And, perhaps, I… feel a little bad. Only a little."

This seemed more of what Archie wanted, his pout fading, and Maxie's irritation rising.  
"You aren't lying about this, are you?" Maxie growled, Archie looking taken aback, if not a little insulted.  
"Why would I lie about Shelly dying?"  
He was sounding a bit more sober now.  
How long had it been since he had drank anyways?  
"She died back on Mt. Pyre—when we… when we took the Red Orb."  
Archie paused, staring at the lamp as though it was showing him that exact moment all over again.  
"We got ambushed by all these pokemon. Must've gotten upset with all of us comin' up and disturbing the peace. And then, they just jumped out, and Shelly…"  
He stopped there, grabbing a tissue and sinking into the couch, as if magically it would allow him to disappear and never have to come back to these memories.

Archie didn't continue, and Maxie didn't bother to press him for any more details. It seemed to be making him further upset, and obviously, this wasn't all some drunken fantasy conjured on a whim to have an excuse to garner his sympathy. Why would he go to such lengths to convince him to empathy, anyways?  
The fact he was there to begin with was baffling in itself.  
The only one, hard fact Maxie could see was that he'd need to get some blankets for the couch tonight.

Silence swathed over the both of them, Maxie not exactly knowing what to tell Archie, Archie nowhere near eager to illustrate the exact horrors that had taken place on Mt. Pyre.  
Setting aside the tissue box, Maxie started to get up, sighing, "Let me go get some blankets for you…"  
Archie was silent, lost in his own thoughts as Maxie went to the closet in the hall to get out the spare blankets.  
He was slow about it, careful in picking out a blanket that he wouldn't mind Archie getting sick all over by the time morning came until he was simply standing there, staring at the contents of the closet.  
Archie was an idiot for coming here, expecting comfort from a former enemy.  
They hadn't spoken on even terms since, well, before they became rivals.  
Did Archie think they could go back to what life had been like before?

Maxie blocked off any and all further thoughts of the past, of what had happened between the two of them, and went back to the living room. Archie certainly seemed glued to his couch, but at least he wasn't staring at his lamp anymore and even better he wasn't crying again.  
Setting the neatly folded blanket at the end of the couch, Maxie sat back down, considering getting up and throwing away the excess tissues he had set aside when Archie turned to him, his face serious.

"What happened to us?"

Blinking, his thoughts switching from tissues to Archie's rather vague question, Maxie looked up, pursing his lips.  
"Well, we gave up our ideas for the land and sea—"  
"No, no, I mean before that—_us, _what we had been… Before, we became rivals."  
Archie was being quite insistent and serious about it all, Maxie not looking eager in the slightest.  
"Archie, you're drunk, and probably very tired. You should go to sleep…"  
"Don't you love me anymore?"  
Maxie grimaced, turning his head away.  
He had been hoping to keep the conversation away from that, even if it was obviously going to go in that direction either way.  
"… That was years ago, Archie, and we're different men now—"  
"You aren't answering my question. You don't love me anymore."

Looking back, Maxie wanted to groan at the sight of Archie's eyes filling up with tears again, his hopes of him sobering up dashed.  
"I... I… Archie, you're very drunk and not thinking correctly. We had parted ways, had our different ideals—you should know this, considering how long we both pursued all that madness and caused all this havoc in Hoenn?"  
Archie didn't appear convinced, twisting away from Maxie and burying his face in his arms against the couch's arm.  
"I can see it in your eyes," muttered Archie, voice muffled by his arms. "The love is gone."

He wanted to say something snarky—about how melodramatic Archie was being, how it had been _years, _why was he bringing it up now?—but Maxie, his eyes focused on Archie's back, couldn't find any of these things coming out of his mouth.  
Archie was drunk, which had rendered him incredibly illogical, incapable of proper thought and clear thinking.  
Of course he'd bring up… That.  
After all these years, too.

Frowning at the couch cushions, Maxie eventually just shook his head, picking up the used tissues and getting up, going and to throw them away.  
Coming back, Archie seemed to be following a theme—find one position, and don't move from it. At all.  
Maybe it was his way of dealing with his emotions, or just his drunkenness pinning him to one spot, but he still had his face hidden in his arms. Maxie could assume that he just wasn't willing to look up and see him reenter the room, or even was trying to spite him, not budging an inch like the overgrown child he was.  
His fingers felt out the soft fabric of the blanket, shaking it out as he looked back over to Archie.

He hadn't budged.

Suppressing a sigh, he slowly went to him, leaning down and draping the blanket across his back.  
"You're such a child sometimes," he muttered, kissing Archie's cheek. Promptly fleeing before he could be grabbed, as Archie's habit seemed to be when anyone happened to trying to elude him, he caught a glimpse of Archie sitting straight up just before he ducked around the corner.  
Confrontations were not necessarily his specialty, feeling far more comfortable fleeing someplace else out of the range of Archie, this time in particular.

Shutting his bedroom door behind himself, leaning against it, Maxie released the breath he had been holding, closing his eyes.  
He was an idiot.  
He was the _biggest _idiot there, and Archie was a pretty big idiot.

Maxie knew he was inviting something that he knew he wasn't ready for—many more nights of a drunken Archie on his couch, and many more nights of… This in general.  
Feeling as if he were on some cheesy soap opera, just absent of the cameras and bad environmental props, Maxie leered for a moment at a wall, silently cursing whatever deity had caused Archie to stumble in through his door.  
This whole mess was born from idiocy.

By that point, it was nearing eleven—past his scheduled bedtime and past the time where any logical thinking occurred.  
Sighing heavily, he let himself fall onto his bed, feeling the mattress spring back against him before letting his weight sink into it, conceding defeat.  
Laying there for a few more seconds of staring at the wall, Maxie shifted, crawling under the covers, glad that he had at least been wearing comfortable, loose clothing beforehand.

Despite all his hopes and wishes, he didn't fall asleep.  
In fact, he lay there just staring at his alarm clock on the nightstand nearby, watching as the time ticked to eleven, to eleven o' one, up until it hit twenty.  
Perfectly in sync with the illuminated red numbers, he heard the click of the door opening.  
From staring intently at the clock, his eyes snapped shut—what was he, a child hiding from mother?—and he tried deepening his breathing to imitate the lull of sleep that should have overcame him twenty minutes ago.  
The carpet did little to muffle none-too-soft footsteps that crept closer to his bed until finally, standing right next to the bed.  
Trying to remain relaxed, trying to still look asleep, when a hand brushed along his jaw, it was hard to keep it up, his eyes snapping open and looking up at Archie.

"I knew you wouldn't be asleep."  
Maxie scowled up at Archie's self-satisfied expression, pushing himself up into a sitting position.  
"What makes you say that?" he growled, as if he were insulted by Archie's good guess. That's all it was—a good guess.  
"You never were able to fall asleep on those nights when you had something on your mind," Archie explained, his voice soft, and Maxie blinked twice, his scowl fading as he looked away.  
"… Obviously you think about this often," he remarked dryly, trying to push it away as some mundane, ridiculous thing.  
"I think about you all the time."

Maxie's gaze trailed from his pillow to Archie, not humored.  
"Could you be any cheesier? I'm sure I could find that same line in some teen romance novel, or perhaps one of those cliché chick flicks—"  
He had plenty more examples of just how horrible Archie's romantic statement sounded, but, well, there were a pair of lips smothering his now.  
Pushing him onto his back, Archie crawled onto the bed, straddling Maxie's hips as they kissed.  
Pulling back, Maxie sucked in a breath, leering up at the other man.  
"You taste like alcohol," he stated in disgust, Archie smiling down at him.  
"When did you become such a pussy?"  
Archie could see Maxie's face twitch from just how irritated he was from that remark, brimming with satisfaction from the reaction he drew.  
Arms abruptly flung themselves around his neck, Archie's pleased look morphing into shock as he was dragged down, Maxie pushing up against him in a kiss that rivaled the last in intensity.

Archie's last thought was how, apparently, he should insult Maxie more often as he was pulled all the way down to the bed.

Night turned into day and sunlight, as it usually did, splashed into Maxie's bedroom and illuminated the darkness that had formerly laid claim to it.  
Gradually awakening to the ever-brightening state of the room, his eyes groggily surveyed everything.  
Closet was closed, as it had been. Clock was in its correct placement on the nightstand.  
Everything seemed just right, but something felt _off_—  
A warm sigh caressed his neck and an arm he hadn't noticed about his torso firmed its hold, tugging him a bit back as he tensed.  
All of the memories from the night before flooded back—Archie coming in drunk, sobbing about Shelly's death, his demands, the kissing, and then—

Maxie mentally slapped himself, caving in so easily to the drunken advances of a man who he was his rival.  
No.  
Former.  
That was all in the past, but nonetheless, that didn't make things magically changed.

"Maxie…?"

He paused in his mental ranting, saving it for a later date as he discovered that Archie was now awake. Shivering as lips brushed along his neck, he peered back, seeing that yep, he was awake.  
"… Apparently you weren't blackout drunk if you aren't freaking out, wondering how you got here," dryly Maxie assumed, Archie grinning delightedly.  
"I remember enough," he purred, his gaze mischievous as he leaned forward, Maxie feeling teeth graze his ear.

Jerking forward, hearing Archie laughed, he grumbled something obscene under his breath as he evaluated that one, he was quite sore in a place he didn't usually care to be sore, and two, he was lacking clothes.  
Going to get dressed and get out of this situation, Maxie somehow forgot the arm around his torso, though he certainly remembered as it dragged him back.

"I didn't say you could leave the bed yet," Archie growled into his ear, Maxie scowling back at him. "How are you not hungover?" he demanded, somewhat wishing now that Archie was being slowed with the usual effects of alcohol seeping out of his system.  
"I have a body of iron. Now, we have quite a few years to make up for…"  
Maxie huffed, leering at him.  
"That is no explanation, and, I haven't agreed to anything—"

Archie's kisses still tasted like alcohol.  
But despite everything, Maxie found out, he didn't really mind that much.


End file.
